Title: AtonementPart:
Prologue. I'm thinking it'll be about five parts. I have the first
part almost written and I think it'll be ready to post by tomorrow
night... work allowing.Author: EdieSummary: Hermione has all
but forgotten her world and it seems that only one person remembers
her.Rating: R, for later chapters.Disclaimer: Do I own? No,
I think not. Do I wish I did? I think so.

Prologue:
To Call Down Evil Upon

The
night was cold. From underneath the security of his borrowed
Invisibility Cloak, the man shifted his weight and blew a puff of air
out in defiance of the weather. He was small, stooped, and almost
completely unnoticeable, a trait that had gotten him far in life. He
almost did not need the Cloak but Master had insisted. Master always
insisted. "This one is smart," he'd say, "She'll catch
you."

It was almost three am and the man's feet were
growing tired. He thought to himself irritably that he was getting
too old for this; that he should be home with his wife complaining
about the aches in his joints in front of a particularly warm and
cozy fire. But Master paid him well and he was not in a position to
quibble. Master would listen to his complaints and find weakness and
the man could not afford to be without a job.

It was almost
three am and she would be along soon. Sighing, he stared at the
apartment building across the street, a four storied affair that was
so unremarkable as to be downright drab. It was nothing like Master's
home and the man couldn't figure out why anything to do with
it should interest him. But the man did not bother to debate that for
long either. It was not his place.

It had been ten months and
he knew almost everything about her, probably more than he ever
bothered to learn about his own wife. He liked to think he was the
best money could buy; that there was nothing and no one he could not
track. He had suggested that to Master once and only once, only to be
laughed at and ridiculed. Could he possibly have thought he was
Master's first choice? The man took a moment to remind
himself once again that he was well paid for his pains.

At
three fifteen a taxicab pulled up in front of the building and, after
a few moments during which the occupant of the taxi had obviously
spent paying for her fare, the door opened and she got out, just as
he had known she would. It had been the same for the whole entire
time he had spent watching her. Same shift at the all night diner a
ten minute taxi ride away. Every day she would leave her flat at
exactly 6:05 pm and every morning she would return at 3:15. He
thought to himself scornfully that she was too easy. No
challenge for the likes of him.

Once he had been inside of her
flat. He had tried to Apparate in, sure it would please Master, only
to discover that the bloody chit had put up some kind of ward all
around her flat. But he was not the best for a lack of
resourcefulness and had simply entered it the Muggle way: he had
pried open a window she had left cracked and wandered easily in.

Her flat had been dull and poorly decorated. He thought the
whole thing was beneath Master and so had dug deeper. In her bedroom,
he had discovered a trunk full of tattered Daily Prophets and a stack
of letters almost entirely unread, except for one from a Ronald
Weasley that had been poured over almost to complete ruination. At
the very bottom, she had hidden pictures of her friends… of Weasley
and his sister, Potter, and a smiling girl the man did not recognize.

He had thought Master would be pleased with details of the
trunk but he hadn't been. The man shuddered thinking on his anger;
on the rants about invading her privacy and being too daft to know
when to leave well enough alone. The man had been confused. Was
following her not an invasion of her privacy in and of itself? He had
been too wise, of course, to voice that opinion to Master. Too wise
and too scared, for every one in the wizarding world knew that his
master had been very close to You-Know-Who. The man did not know how
Master had evaded the Dementor's Kiss at the end of the War and
secretly thought that he had perhaps bribed the Ministry.

Master
was not to be trusted and every one knew that as well.

Master
liked to know other things about the girl, however, and those were
easy to observe. She had no friends as far as he could discern and
could almost always be found holed up inside of her flat. The shades
were almost always drawn but once or twice she had forgotten and he
had been able to observe her sitting in what he remembered to be the
living room, wrapped up in a quilt and doing nothing but
staring.

The man thought to himself that the girl was
pathetic; that spying on some Muggle was pathetic but, well… he had
already realized how lucrative his job was.

Tonight was
important, Master had told him. The anniversary of the death of her
mother or some such. From the shadows of the alley, he could tell
that the girl was affected. She seemed more tired than usual tonight
and had trouble getting her key into the door properly. That
afternoon she had left earlier and he had followed her to a cemetery
some distance away from her flat. She had cried in front of the
tombstone for an hour before quietly leaving for that dingy diner she
spent so much time at. Had tripped near the gate on the way
out.

Pathetic.

The Muggle was below his Master,
that much he knew. Would never actually say it of course
because things like that simply were not said anymore. The War might
have ended four years ago but people still listened. It would not do
to talk.

The girl entered her building after a moment's
agitation and he sighed. Counted to one hundred underneath his breath
before moving to stand in the alley directly below her window. He
pulled the Cloak tighter to himself, wishing it was the sort that
provided warmth, and prepared himself for a long evening of staring
at her blinds.

There were things Master wanted to know and he
was certainly the best man to deliver that information.

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